FREE WHITEWATER

Press

Writing and Readership

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I love this beautiful town.

I’ve been writing and publishing posts at FREE WHITEWATER for over seven months’ time. My first post was on May 22nd, and I’ve written over two-hundred thirty posts since then. This website has photos, an email link, a calendar, a translation tool, and a searchable archive. (Videos of places in town — a much delayed feature — will begin soon. Really.)

I write all of my own copy.

I much appreciate readers who stop by, and I’d like to tell you about readership figures for this website in 2007.

(Quick note: When I write about readership figures, I am writing about actual, local readers, not inflated numbers that include automated visits by search engines, etc., or visits by people in foreign countries who almost certainly have no connection to Whitewater. People abroad are always welcome to visit — bienvenue! — but I am not including them when I refer to readership. These figures do not include people who revisit more than once each week. Throwing in revisits pushes the daily figures way up. Readership statistics that do not filter for automated visits or revisits are often much-inflated.)

When I started writing in May, I had no idea if anyone would visit the site. I thought that I might get a few, local readers per week. I would have been very happy if twenty unique, local people visited per week. To me, that would have been a huge number — imagine if even twenty people would read what you wrote each week? That’s a large number of people — you could fill a baseball diamond with that number. I would have considered myself fortunate with that many readers.

After my first four weeks, I had about fifty local readers a week. Many visited for a fair amount of time, and I was greatly surprised. Weekly unique readership kept climbing, in each succeeding month — to one-hundred, then later two-hundred, then a few hundred, and then several hundred. Local readership keeps growing at an impressive rate.

(One surprise is that, based on my stats and email, I have considerably fewer university readers than one might expect. The vast majority of my readers are not from the university. The upside is that the university can be a growth-market for FREE WHITEWATER, so to speak.)

I wrote a few emails over the period announcing the site, but I have no idea if they increased readership. People whom I had never contacted started to email to me with comments, favorable and unfavorable, and then I realized that word-of-mouth must have taken hold.

FREE WHITEWATER now has a weekly, unique local readership that’s well over half the size of the century-old Whitewater Register’s reported, paid weekly subscription number of 1,569. FREE WHITEWATER is neither a general-interest newspaper nor an online bulletin board — it’s a website of independent commentary. I didn’t expect this number of readers, and I am very fortunate. That’s not bad for only seven months’ time. Woo!

(Of course, no one really knows if all those paid subscribers of the Register are actually readers. Some might use their weekly issue for food preservation

or avian housekeeping, and some other subscribers might be illiterate drug addicts or lunatics. Who knows?)

I would have kept writing — with the same content and tone — if only one person read my website. I didn’t pander to make people happy, sugarcoat what I had to say, or veer from my opinions to increase readership. The best thing a blogger can do is to be true to his conscience. I think that it’s the best way to approach others.

Some people wrote and told me that if I changed my tone, my readership would increase. That wasn’t the right course to me — I wanted to write what I believed, the way I wanted to write. I really never thought that I’d be fortunate enough to have this many readers, but I wanted to write in a blogging style true to my convictions. If only a few people read what I wrote, I would have been happy. If even one person emailed now and then, I would have been amazed. This course has paid off.

Thanks very much to everyone who stops by to visit FREE WHITEWATER. I write based on my convictions, and I appreciate your readership. The world is a busy place, and I want to thank you for taking the time to visit this website, and to write to me. The email that I receive is always interesting, and in each message I learn something from what you’ve written. (Many messages are serious, some funny, and a few almost heart-breaking.)

There will be more posts ahead this week and through the weekend.

The new year will be even busier for FREE WHITEWATER than 2007 has been!

Best regards,

JOHN ADAMS

City

Tone

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I receive a steady volume of email, only a portion of which I post. I respond to other messages privately. Sometimes, I’ve received messages that dislike the tone of FREE WHITEWATER. The concerns usually fall into two categories: (1) the tone is too critical, and (2) more people would read FREE WHITEWATER if the tone were not so critical. (I will address point #2 about readership in another post, and show how readership has climbed each month, and relate how many local residents visit FREE WHITEWATER weekly.)

My tone is, often, critical. It’s a blog of personal and independent commentary, and like many blogs, it adopts a critical tone. As blogs go, it’s not nearly as critical as many popular, large blogs. This medium constrains and guides style, but not content. (When I write in my vocation, it’s a style suited for my work, and different from FREE WHITEWATER. When I speak to people, it’s in a style suited for conversation, and different from FREE WHITEWATER. The content, however, would be the same when discussing matters in our town — just the same.)

This website is nowhere so critical as many pamphlets and newspapers that formed the robust commentary in the America’s first century, for example. It’s not even close to that vigorous tradition. If anything, I have been restrained, and have exercised considerable forbearance. We were, and are, a rough-hewn people. We have always left the fancy, and superficially polite, to England and other embarrassing places. I would always prefer an ill-tailored president over a well-manicured king, and a messy republic over an orderly kingdom.

We are this way because we were, and yet remain, a people that loves liberty and free expression. There are, however, two groups who argue against truly free speech, for different reasons. The first group comprises those in this town who like the position that they have, and feel that they’re entitled to special consideration. There’s a belief some people have here, that position justifies, excuses, and entitles. They think and act situationally — if they are so-and-so, then they should be trusted, and they are entitled. I reject this view. They are justified, excused, and entitled only through law and morality, not based on an appeal to their status. When the town faction acts, they act first and foremost based on status — they ask and expect trust based on who they are, or what they claim to be.

Their status is unimpressive to me. It should be unimpressive to any resident and citizen: they are just people, neither more nor less. I can be neither smooth-talked nor cajoled into support for what I oppose. I could never be co-opted onto a board, commission, etc. I lack for nothing that those I criticize could give me; the tradition of which I am a grateful inheritor gives me more than they could take. They ask that speech be curbed, but they would never curb their actions in return. In any event, my speech — and yours — is a right, yet their actions are often in disregard of others’ rights. We could never have a fair trade: some would sacrifice what liberty allows in exchange for others’ ceasing a disregard of their fellow residents’ rights. That’s the worst possible bargain.

They stand on local status as entitlement, and that’s why the exercise of speech rights is so disturbing to them. One would think that Whitewater were a small, corrupt island in the middle of nowhere, for all the difference it makes to those who oppose mere speech on the basis of their inflated sense of local self-importance. They don’t have a meritorious position; they have a mistaken view of themselves and of the rights of others in our city.

There is a second group, though, that deserves more careful consideration. It includes those progressives who would like a different tone so that society, in their view, could be a better place. They’re not self-interested; they seek social justice. I am not unsympathetic to them: like all who share my support for “free markets, individual liberty, and peace,” I want a better world. The search for social justice is a noble end. It should never be easily dismissed.

I am convinced and confirmed in the view that greater liberty and expression, and not limitation in speech or action, will bring about that better world. I wish we had a world where we could be softer; I am convinced it only invites a few to misuse public authority to bully others, all the while that few tells the community that we should be grateful for what they’ve done.

Through the full exercise of speech rights, and the liberating, empowering operation of free markets in labor and capital, I believe that we will have that better world. I am no less a true believer than those who seek a ‘progressive’ solution. On the contrary, we libertarians believe that our liberty-based views are the true ‘progressive’ solution, making life easier for more people than any other project, plan, or scheme.

For those who merely seek to defend their distorted notions and status while disregarding others, I am unsympathetic. For those, though, who in their own way, seek a better community through promoting social justice, I have considerable sympathy. It is, merely, that I doubt their preferred means will achieve those noble ends.

Press

Depression over the Holiday Schedule for the Whitewater Register?

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I saw in the latest copy of the Whitewater Register (a copy that I found in a gutter wrapped around a bottle of MD 20/20) that the paper’s holiday schedule will push back publication by an entire day.

How will all the members of the town faction bear up under pressure of that twenty-four hour delay? Will their hands shake and their eyes water as they wait convulsing for the next fine edition?

If all the workers at the paper’s printing press won the lottery, and quit to travel around the world, would sensible people miss the paper? I don’t see how.

I do understand that the paper plays a vital, nearly therapeutic role for the stodgy members of the town faction, needing the paper to convince themselves that they’re justified in what they do.

Although I would not be inclined to test the theory, I have heard that the paper makes far more sense while drinking a tall glass of Mogen David 20/20, in the original Red Grape Flavor, or, for the adventurous, Blue Raspberry Flavor with Bling Bling.

Uncategorized

Coming Attractions for the Half-Week of December 26th

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This (half) week’s coming attractions include —

• Depression over the Holiday Schedule for the Whitewater Register?

• Review of the latest School Board meeting

• Choice in Education

• Review of the latest Common Council meeting

• Clear Information on the Lawsuit against Larry Meyer

Holiday

Merry Christmas

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In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

Lk 1:26-35

City, Police

Police and Fire Commission: Hirings without Oversight?

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Under the Wisconsin Statutes that provide for the scope and authority of a Police and Fire Commission, there is a requirement that the

Board Shall Approve a Department’s Subordinates. “The chiefs shall appoint subordinates subject to approval by the board.” 62.13(4)(a)

A review of the minutes of our Whitewater PFC reveals that citizen approval of promotions is rightly understood to be a requirement of the law. That’s why our PFC will sometimes go into closed session, for interviews or discussions of promotions.

Did that happen in early 2005, with the approval of interviews for a patrolman and a sergeant?

In the February 2, 2005 minutes, under “New business: Chief’s report — ” one finds a notion on “Special Session to be announced for late may [sic] for interviews for a patrolman and the vacant Sergeant position.”

Did that legally-required citizen approval take place before these positions were filled? It doesn’t seem like it. Here’s why.

The next meeting is a May 4, 2005 meeting, at which the last meeting listed — for which minutes were approved — was the February 2, 2005 meeting. So, no meeting is listed or mentioned or recorded between February 2 and May 4, 2005.

Yet, at the May 4, 2005 meeting, the minutes reveal that Chief Coan had already hired an officer and promoted a sergeant. Here’s what the minutes record, under “New Business: Chief’s Report:”

Discussed new hiring of officer and promotion of Sergeant. Favorable response within Department.”

So the promotions had already taken place, without approval of our PFC, as the law requires?

When Chief Coan announced this at the meeting, how did the PFC members respond? Here’s what the minutes record:

A Wendt/Triebold motion was passed unanimously requesting that PFC members be notified when there is a swearing in of officers, so that PFC members can be present at the ceremony.”

The minutes reveal that (1) the PFC did not approve the promotions as the law requires, (2) were unaware of the hirings as a citizen body until after they had taken place, and (3) thought no better of the importance of their roles than to ask if they could present at the swearing-in ceremony!

Those are the minutes as published to our community. Our PFC has failed in the most basic matters of oversight, and so we are left with a police chief who acts, however poorly, as a law unto himself. Did no one have enough self-respect to ask that the law be applied properly? At other committees and boards, the smallest irregularity is a subject of great debate. On the Police and Fire Commission, one of the most important oversight roles in the community, the clear requirements of the law (“subject to approval”) were apparently ignored.

More of my assessment of our Police and Fire Commission can be found at posts entitled, “Police and Fire Commission: Importance and Authority, “Police and Fire Commission: Reasonable Standards,” “Police and Fire Commission: Minutes,” “Police and Fire Commission: Performance Generally,” and “Police and Fire Commission: Citizen Complaints.” more >>

Uncategorized

William Schaefer and Whitewater

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Well over a decade ago, Maryland Governor William Schaefer threatened political critics in an abusive way: he had Maryland employees take pictures of his opponents at rallies, etc., and sent those photos to them. So great was his sense of entitlement, so arrogant was his presumption of the use of his political authority, that he felt this conduct justified. It caused a great outcry, and Schaefer eventually met a bad end — he was defeated in a Democratic primary race for state comptroller after a string of remarks ridiculing women, non-English speakers, Koreans, residents of the Maryland eastern shore, and AIDS patients, among other groups.

He lived in contempt of many of his fellow citizens, and felt entitled to use public resources to intimidate his law-abiding political critics. Here’s what one of the targets of the photographs had to say to Schaefer, in reply: “”It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “It won’t stop me” from protesting. “In fact, it might make me protest sooner.”

Well said! No decent person should ever sacrifice the full rights of citizenship to an official who misuses his authority against political critics.

Could anything like that happen in Whitewater? Would anyone here — holding public office — ever ask municipal employees to observe, track, or identify political opponents? To do so would be a misuse of public office, a violation of the promises on the City of Whitewater’s website and in other publications, and actionable under Wisconsin law.

It happened in Maryland, but could it happen here?

City, Development, Economy, Free Markets

Student Housing in Whitewater

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Readers of FREE WHITEWATER know that I have been opposed to a restrictive, anti-market approach to student housing. Whitewater’s leading critic of student-rental housing is dentist-politician Dr. Roy Nosek. Nosek has mentioned, more than once, that student housing is a ‘death-knell’ for a neighborhood.

Recently, I offered three posts critiquing Nosek’s understanding of basic market forces, his apparent cultural bias against student housing, and the weak story that reporter Carla McCann of the GazetteXtra wrote about student housing in Whitewater. (One of the reasons that I described Nosek as having a cultural bias is because as an economic prescription, Nosek’s positions are incoherent; he doesn’t seem to understand the probable economic consequences of his own proposals.)

Since my three posts, a reader pointed me to a follow-up story that McCann wrote about student housing in Whitewater. McCann’s second story on the topic is dated December 15th, and is entitled, “Do Renters Get a Bad Rap?” The second story lists the views of City Council member Max Taylor and Whitewater Developer Russ Walton. They do a good job explaining that (1) the vast majority of students cause no social problems, and (2) new housing units lead to reduced housing costs. Both points are unquestionably true.

I have no idea why McCann did not write a balanced story initially. As I pointed out after her first story, she omitted any points of view from students or landlords. That left the first story as laughably one-sided. These second interviews should have been part of a single story. I’ll note, by the way, that McCann’s first story’s conclusory headline (“Neighborhoods Oppose Housing for UW-W Students”) was biased in favor of Nosek’s position; the second headline’s equivocal nature (Do Renters Get a Bad Rap?) is not similarly supportive of the pro-market position.

Recently, a reader wrote and asked me what might be done about a near-monopoly on student housing by a single landlord. He asked if a subsidy might be necessary to break that monopoly. I promised him an answer, and here it is.

Let’s assume that there is a near-monopoly in favor of a single landlord. There are times when a market does not form, or when conditions prevent a market from functioning. I would favor reductions to entry barriers (zoning restrictions) as the solution to this problem, over subsidies. I know, of course, that subsidies are meant to address entry barriers of a different sort, so under an effectual monopoly, I would not dismiss the idea easily; the practical return to a normal market is a worthy goal. Subsidies would be my last resort, but we could consider them if that need came to pass.

The problem, of course, is that zoning restrictions and an overly-aggressive enforcement culture work to favor an incumbent landlord over new entrants, and make the use of a subsidy by new entrants difficult, if not impossible.

There’s irony in all this. Nosek’s support for harsh zoning restrictions leads to a few ill-consequences: (1) it favors incumbent landlords over new entrants, thus perpetuating an assumed near-monopoly, (2) it makes use of a subsidy difficult to impossible, as new entrants could not use it, (3) it favors incumbents and allows them to raise rental rates, (4) because it inhibits new construction in zoning-restricted areas, it forces incumbents to use profits in less-optimal ways than their area of greatest skill (as landlords), (5) drives demand for student housing to a black market, (6) leads to a need for increasingly intrusive methods of code enforcement to prevent homeowners from choices that satisfy demand for student housing, (7) ultimately prevents homeowners from selling to the highest bidders, who might satisfy that student housing demand. Rentals would cost more, and homeowners would not get the best prices at sale, under Nosek’s approach.

That’s why a subsidy is not feasible, now. Nosek’s opposition to student housing is ill-considered, and will lead this city down an economically irrational path, made worse by mean-spirited, intrusive municipal enforcement. more >>

Cartoons & Comics

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Break

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Christmas Tales: How the Grinch Stole Christmas Break by John Adams

Every Student
Down in U-ville
Liked Christmas Break a lot…

But the Grinch,
Who lived just South of U-ville,
Did NOT!

The Grinch hated Christmas Break! The whole winter season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be because it was the start of their fun.
Perhaps, because he was sorry their work was all done.

But, whatever the reason,
Their work or their fun,
He stood there on Christmas Break, hating the U’s,
Staring down from his office with a sour, Grinchy frown
At the warm lighted dorms below in our town.

For he was sure every student down in U-ville beneath
Was busy hanging a fresh-grown hemp wreath.

“And they’re hanging their posters!” he snarled with a sneer.
“Tomorrow is Break! It’s practically here!”
Then he growled, with his grinch fingers nervously drumming,
“I MUST find a way to keep Christmas Break from coming!”
For, tomorrow, he knew…

…All the U girls and boys
Would wake up bright and early. They’d rush for their buses!
And then! Oh, the Rallies! Oh, the Dances! The Fusses!
That’s one thing he hated! The FUSSES! The FUSSES!

They should stay quiet, they shouldn’t talk,
He really hated it when they’d leave the campus to walk
Around all the town that he thought was only his
He’d fix them good, he’s show them what is

He’d tried to keep them away,
Anyway that he could
He even petitioned the city
for a fence made of wood

But fences and high walls
Just weren’t quite enough
He’d drive to the campus,
and take all their stuff

And the more the Grinch thought of the Christmas-Break fling
The more the Grinch thought, “I must stop this whole thing!
“Why for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
I MUST stop Break from coming!
…But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE GRINCH
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

“I know just what to do!” The Grinch Laughed in his throat.
And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.
And he chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Grinchy trick!
“With this coat and this hat, I’ll look just like Saint Nick!”

“All I need is a reindeer…”
The Grinch looked around.
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch…?
No! The Grinch simply said,
“If I can’t find a reindeer, I’ll ride a squad car instead!”
So he called sidekick, Chief Jim. Then he took some paint, both black and white
And he and he painted the car so it looked just right…

THEN
He loaded some bags
and filled the car to the brim
On a ramshackle squad car
He rode with Chief Jim.

Then the Grinch said, “Go!”
And the car started down
Toward the dorms where the students
Lay a-snooze in our town.

All their dorms were dark. Quiet snow filled the air.
All the students were all dreaming sweet dreams without care
When he came to the first dorm in the square.
“This is stop number one,” The old Grinchy Claus hissed
And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch.
But if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two.
Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue
Where the student posters all hung in a row.
“These posters,” he grinned, “are the first things to go!”

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
Around the whole room, and he took every present!
iPods! And laptops! Stereos! Snacks!
Calculators! Scooters! Doritos! Backpacks!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly,
Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimney!

Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the student feast!
He searched all around, in cupboard and pan
Why, that old Grinch even took their last beer can!

Then he stuffed all the food up the chimney with glee.
“And NOW!” grinned the Grinch, “I will stuff up the tree!”

Then the last thing he took
Was the log for their fire.
On their walls he left nothing but hooks, and some wire.

And the one speck of salsa
That he left in the house
Was a speck that was even too small for a mouse.

Then
He did the same thing
To the other fraternity houses

Leaving specks
Much too small
For the other brothers’ mouses!

It was quarter past dawn…
All the students, still tired by far
All the students, still a-snooze
When he packed up his car,
Packed it up with their stuff! The books! Every box!
The pencils! And the pens! The papers! The Crocs!

Three thousand feet up! Up the side of old Starin,
He rode to the tiptop with his police siren blaring!
“Pooh-pooh to the students!” he was grinch-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now that no Break is coming!
“They’re just waking up! I know just what they’ll do!
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
“The all the students down in U-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!”

“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch,
“That I simply must hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow…

It’s a story whose end is yet to be told
Of a Grinch who battles those not yet old
And his friends in the city who’d twist every rule
Just to keep those kids locked up in their school!

City, Fire Dept

Police and Fire Commission?

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I have no idea why the minutes of the Police and Fire Commission make almost no mention of our Fire Department.

So little is addressed in that regard, that the best practice would be to assume that it is merely a Police Commission.

City, Police

Police and Fire Commission: Citizen Complaints

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One measures the strength and honesty of an organization not merely by what it asserts, but by its willingness to allow others to test its assertions, so that it might be open to better practices. It is in this way that the lack of an authentic, accountable citizen complaint process illustrates so much of what it wrong with the Whitewater Police Department’s organizational culture. Our present citizen complaints process is hollow.

The U.S. Justice Department, in its 2001 paper entitled, Principles for Promoting Police Integrity, set up good and effective standards for local departments to use when handling citizen complaints. That makes sense: a good department should have nothing to hide, and should always seek a fair hearing for the citizens it is sworn to protect. One who trumpets his integrity and nobility should not hide from a fair, open examination of it.

Here are the basic guidelines for an authentic citizen complaint process from the Justice Department paper:

1. Perception of Fairness. “Agencies should provide a readily accessible process in which community and agency members can have confidence that complaints against agency actions and procedures will be given prompt and fair attention.”

2. Complaint Forms. Civilians should be allowed to file complaints in-person, by mail, by telephone, by facsimile transmission, or, where possible, by e-mail. A complaint form should be offered, but completion of the form should not be required to initiate a complaint. Individuals should be able to obtain and file complaint forms at places other than law enforcement agencies.

3. Officers and other employees should be prohibited from refusing to accept complaints, or attempting to dissuade a civilian from filing a complaint. Civilians should not be required to meet with or speak with a supervisory officer as a requirement for filing a complaint.

4. Complaints should be accepted from all individuals, including those who request anonymity. Complaints should be accepted from third parties to ensure that witnesses of abuse or misconduct can file complaints as well as victims of such misconduct.

5. Knowledgeable Investigator. Misconduct investigations of serious misconduct allegations, including allegations of excessive force, false arrest, improper search or seizure, or discriminatory law enforcement, should be conducted by an entity that has special responsibility for conducting misconduct investigations.

These sensible practices are far removed from the our practices for citizens in Whitewater.

There are three ways to make a citizen complaint in Whitewater, and all are far from a reasonable standard.

Email. Although the City of Whitewater website does not have a link to a citizen complain process, or any mention of one, there are a few email addresses that one could use. That’s not a process; it’s the absence of a process. A concerned citizen could write to a PFC member, or — amazingly — to a generic email box that goes to the police department.

No one who is truly concerned would take that approach. There’s not even a promise or assurance of how the email would be handled, who at the police department would address the email, or whether one or more PFC members might have a format to address citizen concerns.

When you link to a general email box, without a description of your rights and protections, here’s what it means:

The local organization is daring you to take a chance, knowing that ordinary people who believe that they have been injured will be too intimidated to speak up.

Serious professions like law and medicine have real and authentic processes for handling complaints. An email box without guarantees spelled out in writing is a sham, in which fragile or inexperienced people would be rightly intimidated. We’re like the proverbial southern town from the 1960s, in which the sheriff contends that everyone’s happy, because he has yet to hear of a single resident black or white resident speak up critically about his authority.

Here’s a snapshot of the main webpage page of the PFC:

The second way that once could complain is to attend a PFC meeting. That’s likely even more intimidating than a generic email box with no clear explanation of rights, timelines, etc.

In fact, in the last three years, the minutes of the PFC reveal that only one citizen, a business owner, appears to have offered citizen comments.

I am sure that Chief Coan would say that proves there are no other concerns. That’s nonsense: he presides over a process that is unfamiliar and intimidating to ordinary people, and then announces that their silence is proof of his excellence. (That’s why television in a city that expects complaints about police conduct at a public meeting is a terrible idea. There’s no initial confidentiality in that sort of avenue.)

It should be obvious that complaints about police conduct are more serious, and more intimidating to those who believe that they have been injured, than ordinary comments at a public meeting. It’s more than a concern about signs, banners, and code violations, after all.

Finally, I suppose, someone could walk into the Municipal Building during the day ,and try to file a complaint. A city with a real outreach program would tell people how to file a compliant, and what their rights are. We have nothing like that here — other cities in Wisconsin do, but not ours.

Even after the height of community anxiety after the Star Packaging raid, the Whitewater Police Department — weeks afterward, was able to contend that there were no complaints about its conduct. Of course not — those who were aggrieved had no reason to trust that — absent any normal mechanism for complaining — their voices would be hear, or that they would be treated fairly.

You may say whatever you want (I advocate free speech, after all). Do not expect, however, that the the sparse web page of the PFC will convince a person of normal understanding and intelligence that he or she can feel comfortable filing a complaint. Do not expect that the absurd idea of expecting people to walk into a PFC meeting, and complaining there, will work. We do not have few complaints because people are happy; we have few complaints because it’s to hard for people to speak up with sound assurance. Someone who speaks English as a second language would have even less reason to feel comfortable or trust our practices.

It was President Reagan who often advised to “trust, but verify.” What then of a system that cannot be verified, that has no real citizen complaints process worth its salt? Coan presides over a system in which citizen complaints are difficult, and in which he can contend that the absence of complaints proves the nobility, integrity, etc., of his force.

It is system in which a reasonable person will not have confidence.

Uncategorized

Coming Attractions for the Week of December 17th

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This week’s coming attractions include —

• Police and Fire Commission Series, continued

• Common Council Meeting for December 18th, 2007

• Inbox: Reader Mail — Housing Monopolies and Subsidies

• Choice in Education (holdover from last week)

• Christmas Tales: How the Grinch Stole Christmas Break by John Adams

• Friday Cartoon Feature

City, Police

Police and Fire Commission: Performance Generally

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This is the fifth post in my series on the Whitewater Police and Fire Commission. The first post was an introduction to the series, and the second post cited the authority of our PFC under Wisconsin law. The third post suggested reasonable standards for Whitewater’s PFC. The fourth post discussed meeting minutes.

Let’s consider PFC performance by a few reasonable standards, standards that almost anyone should readily accept. (I will consider the citizen complaint process separately.)

The commission should fulfill its legislative mandate. Meetings are not a gift to the community; they are a requirement of the law for the welfare of the community. If other reasonable standards are not being met, then the legal protections that a real and robust PFC offers are not realized. It’s not as though someone failed to score a run at a community softball tournament; it’s far more than that.

Of all the meetings with minutes available, most last for less than one-hour, despite listing several serious topics for each meeting. Consider these brief encounters with oversight:

2/2/05 — 7:05 PM start to 7:38 PM adjournment.

5/14/05 — 7:03 PM start to 7:33 PM adjournment.

8/24/05 — meeting listed on city website without minutes — it was actually cancelled (as the minutes of the 11/16/05 meeting reveal)

11/16/05 — 7:00 PM start to 7:45 adjournment.

2/13/06 — meeting listed on city website without minutes – it was actually cancelled (as is clear from the subsequent 5/10/06 minutes, that refer to the prior meeting as 11/16/05).

5/10/06 — 7:00 PM start to 7:46 PM adjournment.

7/11/06 — 7:00 PM start to 8:35 PM adjournment. Finally a meeting over one hour! Yet, this meeting had a closed session portion to interview an applicant. Much of the time was interviewing, not a public meeting.

8/23/06 — 7:00 start to 9:05 PM adjournment. Only PFC meeting in the last three years’ time that resembles other ordinary civic board meetings in length.

8/30/06 — 6:30 start to 6:45 adjournment. The meeting went into closed session from 6:37 to 6:42, after which Chief Coan was reappointed, after having only recently resigned, taken a job elsewhere, and then returned to Whitewater. That’s right — reappointing a chief who left and then returned with a matter of weeks took the Whitewater PFC only five minutes to decide. A discussion of his sudden desire to return should have taken more than five minutes — a mere one minute per PFC member.

That’s not deliberation; it’s a rushed, embarrassing exercise in abdication of serious debate. How did the PFC measure the time it took to deliberate Coan’s reappointment? I don’t know, but an egg timer would have worked.

I could continue this way, but the point’s clear enough — historically, these meetings are so brief they’re a mere formality, not a practical matter of oversight.

The commission’s meetings should begin at a fixed, regular, and published time, so that citizens can reliably attend. Our PFC does not meet at on a consistent, regular basis. Look at the dates during which the City of Whitewater website says that the PFC has met; there’s nothing regular and predicable about these times.

2/2/05, 5/5/05, 8/24/05, 11/16/05, 2/13/06, 5/10/06, 7/11/06, 8/23/06, 8/30/06, 11/01/06, 2/7/07 (cancelled), 3/21/07, 5/23/07, 9/05/07.

Some of these are regular meetings, some are special meetings, but there’s no easy pattern for a citizen to follow. Other City of Whitewater meetings — including commission and board meetings — are held on a predictable schedule. The schedule of PFC meetings is a guessing game by comparison.

The commission should produce useful and thorough minutes of its meetings.

Most of the minutes from the PFC are now on the web — feel free to review them for yourselves. They completely lack the character of minutes, in which topics raised are listed, and the content of the discussion, and who raised different points, is listed. Instead, the so-called minutes look like mere agenda items. As I’ll contend tomorrow, televising these meetings without a genuine and reliable citizen complaint process would be the worst possible step. The best step is to have genuine minutes that are more than line items saying “Discussion of…” or “Update on…” with nothing more than the mere topic itself. What was said? Who said it? What were the reasons for a given position? Those are useful minutes.

The nature and role of the commission should be listed in the same places as all other community information. Here, the PFC looks like most other City of Whitewater boards and committees; its entry on the city website is about the same as, for example, the fountain committee or the tree commission.

Perhaps, just perhaps, some commissions and boards should receive more prominent notice. I’d suggest the PFC as one of them.

Information about the commission should be clear and easy to understand. I think that the PFC falls short in this regard. The municipal website lists that the PFC schedules meetings quarterly; it would be better if it held meetings quarterly. There’s also no explanation of a citizen complaints process. (I will post on that separately, tomorrow.)

Information about the commission should be available in the principal languages spoken in the
community. Months ago, I suggested that some translation tool be available to make the city website more accessible. My suggested automatic translation tool might not have been the best for the city, but some of these pages should be translated, even if manually. The last census indicates that about 6% of the community is Spanish speaking; the actual percentage is likely higher. If the City of Whitewater and Whitewater Police Department is truly interested in outreach, then some pages translated into Spanish would be a good start.

Coming Tuesday: Integrity and a true citizen complaints process in our town.